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A judicious, jargon-free biography that’s unafraid to name Johnson’s virtues and vices, in architecture and in life.

By

Alex Beam

Nov. 2, 2018 9:20 a.m. ET

A 1992 Wall Street Journal story detailing the gory dissolution of architect Philip Johnson’s longtime business partnership with John Burgee elicited an unusual fan letter. Developer Donald J. Trump “loved the article,” he wrote, because “now that you are ‘free,’ I have a very exciting project for you in Atlantic City.” A few years earlier, Johnson floated an idea for a proposed “Trump Castle” on Madison Avenue: a drawbridge thrown over a moat infested with real alligators.